What A Bargain!

I’ve been pondering the events I witnessed on the CBS Evening News last night. I don’t usually watch CBS, and I don’t usually watch the news at that time.

I should have kept to that schedule. (Ignorance is bliss.)

In a piece about the money spent in Afghanistan, it was almost immediately clear that the American taxpayer is being ripped off in such a colossal way that it (excuse the phrase here – it’s over used but really applies in this case) staggers the imagination.

The first things shown were the concerns of a hospital, which was given a state of the art method of disposing medical wastes – but it remained unused because no fuel was available to run it. So, instead of safely disposing of the wastes, 2 pits were dug on the hospital property, and all medical wastes dumped into the open pits.

Next we were given the facts that in the hospital, quality plumbing was fitted throughout the building, that was not finished, allowing the bloody effluent to run outside unabated, close to where children were to be able to get clean water to drink.

Perhaps the largest punch to the gut was when a 60 year old truck was shown, equipped with a hand crank to turn the motor over. The truck was given to the area to remove waste products, and was credited (and billed) as being NEW, as it was the recipient of a shiny Earl Scheib paint job! (Although Halliburton was not mentioned, I would not be surprised if that company was behind this farce)

The story also focused on a gentleman from San Diego, an expert in the field, who, when reporting this list of egregious blunders to the Pentagon, was told to keep quiet. The reason given was that the work in the city in question was supposed to be one of the SUCCESS STORIES that the U.S. government tells.

???

Did anyone else see this? Is outrage too small a word to describe this?